I Hold The Ashes In My Hands
by Lizicia
Summary: 'Since Wells has been awake from his two-week long coma, Caitlin has come to see him every day, smuggling in chocolate pastries, while doggedly refusing to say anything about the explosion or what happened after. Later, she would say, when you're better.' Caitlin/Wells, if you squint really hard, immediate aftermath of the explosion.


**A/N: Inspired by so many feels, I've written a fic about a couple that's only had two episodes together and who might never happen. But I won't let that stop me.**

**I never would've written this without a wonderful meta on Tumblr, prompting me with the very simple question of "But how does he pay her? In feelings, that's how!"**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Double-posted on AO3.**

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Since Wells has been awake from his two-week long coma, Caitlin has come to see him every day, smuggling in chocolate pastries, while doggedly refusing to say anything about the explosion or what happened after. _Later_, she would say, _when you're better_. He's not sure how long she thinks it will take but she's apparently instructed the nurses and the doctors to not speak of it because no matter how much he tries, they won't tell him anything.

But honestly, they don't need to. Their eyes say it all, whether it be an uneasy look, or a downright disgusted on.

Caitlin doesn't see or ignores it; she smuggles pastries and talks to him about bioengineering like nothing's happened, like she doesn't remember that he doomed Central City with his ambition.

Wells remembers the explosion clearly, vividly; it stands out in his memories like a beacon and whenever he closes his eyes, he can see it all over again.

He remembers the evacuation of S.T.A.R. Labs. Remembers the need to rush back in because he couldn't just let his life's work explode and evaporate. Remembers Caitlin holding him back, and remembers the vibrations underneath their feet and the fear in her eyes when they both realized the collider wouldn't hold up to the strain. He remembers the shock wave of the explosion, and then nothing.

He knows that he is responsible for however many people were injured or worse, killed. Sometimes he wonders if the hospital staff are still kind to him because he didn't escape unscathed, because he's condemned to spend the rest of his life without the ability to walk.

Sometimes he wants to know just how many lives he's ruined.

And really, it only takes one lapse for this make-belief house of cards to collapse.

A nurse brings him an old newspaper after he asks for it in blind hope. Maybe the nurse didn't know to keep those things away from Wells or maybe he had stopped caring. Whatever the reason, he sees 17 faces on the cover of Central City Citizen, 17 people his machine killed. _We will never forget._

He recognizes S.T.A.R. Labs employees, researches, and security guards, a few onlookers, but there is only one face which makes his blood run cold.

_Ronnie Raymond._

He stares at it for minutes and doesn't understand. Ronnie is dead. He was one of the casualties of the explosion. Ronnie was a casualty of his experiment, of his folly, and madness. _Caitlin's Ronnie._

When she walks into his room that evening, a small casual smile on her face, he stares at her and doesn't understand.

"Why didn't you tell me, Caitlin?"

Her smile falters for a moment and now that he looks, really looks, he can see how much she forces that smile to appear, how fake it really is, and realizes how blind he's been because he's wanted to believe that things would be somewhat okay, that because she only had a sprained wrist, everyone else was just as okay.

"Tell you what?"

Wells picks up the Citizen and holds it up, as if she's not aware what he wants to know. "I'm so sorry, Caitlin."

She looks away from him and he sees the tears already gathering in her eyes. Oh, fuck, what a mess. To stand in front of the man who essentially killed your fiancé, to smile at him, to pretend like everything was fine. How could she do that for days?

"Why?"

More importantly, he cannot fathom why she would do it to herself.

She lets out a breathless sound, something between a laugh and a sob and it's the most desolate sound he's ever heard. "What else am I supposed to do? Sit in our apartment where it's too silent and too dark and just too like him?"

"Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"Because it was too soon."

He still doesn't see how she can come to his hospital room and be this friendly when he is the one to blame for so many things that have gone wrong in her life.

"I'm sorry, Caitlin, for Ronnie. I'm sorry I ever built that thing and couldn't control it and-"

"Don't you dare say that." Now her eyes are alight with something else, a fire and fury but still that shattering world-weary ache.

"I'm the one to blame. It was my collider, my project. I've crippled this city but most of all, I've hurt so many people. I've hurt you."

She's crying now, silent tears falling down her cheeks but she still holds an edge of anger and unleashes it the moment he falls silent. "No, don't you dare. You didn't cause it to explode. _We_ couldn't have known this was going to happen. It's terrible but you don't get to punish yourself for it."

"I won't shrink from responsibility, Caitlin. The people of Central City seem pretty clear on who is responsible."

She sits down in a chair next to the window and doesn't reply but he can still see the tears in her eyes and chooses to remain quiet as well. Soon enough, she will get up and leave. She will go and the brilliant team they once made will no longer exist because he let his ego and his impulsiveness destroy it all. And that's about all that he deserves anyway.

"I won't leave."

Caitlin says it quietly but confidently into the stillness of the room and it more than shocks him.

"I won't pretend like everything's fine, okay? What happened with R-" she cuts herself off with a choking sob as she can't say his name out loud but perseveres. "What happened is more than terrible. But I want to know why it happened. I want to know what else happened because of it. I want a reason, and that only happens if I stay at S.T.A.R. Labs."

And she looks at him with defiance and confidence, tears still shining in her eyes, and this is how he'll remember this moment, how he'll always think of her, the devotion overshadowing the terrible ache she must be feeling. And he decides to pretend with her like they can fix this, somehow.

"You realize I can't pay you."

She shrugs one shoulder. "Don't worry about that."

"Caitlin-"

"I said, don't worry. I can handle it. I won't leave."

She means both _S.T.A.R. Labs_ and _you_.

And he is fine with that.

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**A/N: So that's that.**


End file.
